HEBRON, Palestine—I recall the sermons
in my religious services growing up. During the High Holidays of Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there were always calls for peace and prayers
for Israel. A country symbolizing the triumphant conclusion to centuries
of persecution, Israel was the home to my people—the Jews. And they had
waited so long to return. It wasn’t until this summer in which I had
the honor of doing so. Although I began my trip under the normal
auspices of going on Birthright, my trip took me far from the comforts
of Israel, into a land where few Jews go—Palestine.

Preparing to
leave from Tel Aviv, I was nervous for the two months ahead. I had just
finished participating in the Birthright program. After listening to
the Israeli narrative of this land for two weeks, I was ready to see the
other side that had been kept from me and other Jews for so long.
Mentions of the West Bank were sparse during Birthright, and when it was
discussed, the narrative seemed incomplete. I had loved my connection
with the Land of Israel—the land of my origins. However, I was disturbed
by the way people connected the Land of Israel with the State of
Israel—the actions and policies of the current government—without true
inner contemplation. Political doctrine was presented as fact.

Now I was going to the black part of the map.

Steven Davidson / The ChronicleI
craved to see Palestine with my own eyes, but knew so little about the
land. Before I went to teach English to Palestinians and work for an
Nongovernmental organization in Hebron, I tried to research the
Palestinian culture. But Google searches only yielded news clippings of
terrorist attacks and violent clashes. All I had heard from Israelis
about Palestinians was their supposed poor taste in clothing. As I
crossed the Green Line to enter the West Bank, life in Palestine was a
complete and anxious unknown.

So
how did a Jew from New York survive in a place in which the
Anti-Defamation League found 93 percent of the population to be
anti-Semitic? Aside from a group of trusted people, everyone in the West
Bank thought I was Christian.

The situation I
discovered while living in Hebron in the West Bank for more than two
months was shocking. Living there during times of peace (relatively
speaking), a kidnapping and ensuing operation and ultimately war, I
witnessed all the stages of the occupation. I witnessed inhumane horrors
at the hands of what I had been told for so long was a benevolent
government. They were horrors I had not anticipated to be so blatant in
their nature and so extensive in their practice. Yet, the comforting
light at the end of my journey was to have the opportunity to meet the
people there who—in spite of their traumatic lives—only showed me love
and hospitality.

There I was, on the other side of one of the
biggest conflicts in world history, and all these people showed me was
kindness. There was the husband and wife who, after feeding me to no end
(an all-too-common occurrence), sent me on my way with a bag of
peaches. The father, peering around the room, handed me an energy drink,
desperate to give me anything. In one afternoon alone, four separate
people on the street invited me to dinner that night. There was the taxi
driver who took it upon himself to leave his shift to show me around
the Old City and reveal all the secrets his town had to offer, and the
restaurateur who took me in as I sought to break fast during Ramadan. As
I finished the three-course Iftar, I asked him how much it would cost.
He looked at me and replied, “No, Islam,” as he pointed to the sky.

These
were people who often worked upward of 11 or 12 hours in a day to make
not much money at all, and yet, here they were paying for my drinks,
treating me to dinner and doing everything they can to make me feel
welcome.

So how did a Jew
from New York survive in a place in which the Anti-Defamation League
found 93 percent of the population to be anti-Semitic? Aside from a
group of trusted people, everyone in the West Bank thought I was
Christian. I was racked with guilt of lying to people who had been so
kind to me, yet I knew that if the wrong person had found out my
background, there could be grave repercussions.

Wars
do not happen without a systematic dehumanization of your enemy. In
Palestine, this dehumanization is the same in peacetime as it is in the
throws of battle.

Ultimately, my identity would
not have made a difference with most people. In conversations I had,
people repeatedly stated to me that they were not anti-Semitic—they were
only anti-Zionist. They emphasized all the two Abrahamic religions
shared, and they always mentioned the American Jews who voiced
opposition to Israeli occupation. The picture I was viewing was vastly
different than the one that had been painted for me when I was younger. I
realized that statistics like the ADL’s was the result of equating
anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Even when I encountered anti-Semitism,
which I will never condone, I knew it was the product of experiences
that span far beyond my 21 years on this earth. Their fleeting
interactions with Jews have often ended staring down the barrel of a
gun.

Wars do not happen without a systematic dehumanization of
your enemy. In Palestine, this dehumanization is the same in peacetime
as it is in the throws of battle. The Palestinians live under military
rule. Israel Defense Forces soldiers can effectively do as they please.
Even places Palestinians are technically allowed to go would sometimes
be off-limits. I listened as my friend told me how his ability to go to
the Dead Sea, inside the West Bank, was dictated by whether a soldier
along the way decided to turn him back or not. And if my friend asserted
his right to go? “I might be shot.”

Whoever by name controlled
areas of the West Bank, it was ultimately Israel that had the overriding
power. Checkpoints were everywhere—soldiers were as common as olive
trees. Before I arrived, there had been a video of an identified soldier
shooting and killing an unarmed girl, yet nothing happened. There is
virtually no international media found in the West Bank. Israel largely
keeps the foreign press out and demands self-censorship.

Most
international reports on the West Bank are in fact reported from Tel
Aviv or Jerusalem. To read the news unfolding in front of me distorted
by the media at home only affirmed that I needed to share what I
experienced. Censorship is one of Israel’s greatest weapons—the reality
does not match the story given to the public.

Steven Davidson / The ChronicleA
towering slab of concrete divides Israel and Palestine. The wall’s
construction destroyed dozens of villages, has caused an endless
economic depression and imprinted permanent psychological damage to the
Palestinian people. Every time I mentioned going to Tel Aviv, guilt
would seep through as people lamented their desire to just one day be
able to see the ocean. It pained me as I’d pass Jerusalem from the other
side of the wall and those around me would look on at the Dome of the
Rock in the distance, wishing to one day pray there. It was always an
awkward topic to mention my travels in Israel, having visited all these
places as a foreigner. These places were a part of their childhood, yet
now they could never experience what I did with such ease. The wall
penetrated people’s minds and livelihood in so many ways, even in
life-or-death situations. There was a boy who fell ill and needed
immediate medical attention. His family drove to the wall to go to the
hospital in Jerusalem. In spite of his critical condition, soldiers
denied permission for him to go. He died at the wall. These stories are
far from uncommon.

Visiting the wall was intensely emotional. In
Bethlehem, people write down their experiences and tape them to the
wall. The stories stretch for miles. Street art on the wall calls for
freedom and justice, a world where they “build bridges, not walls.”
Tears flowed down my face in a gentle stream. I came upon an
inscription: “Judaism ≠ Zionism,” as a Crescent Moon and Star of David
were drawn side-by-side. I collapsed to my knees. The messages in front
of me were cries of desperation, of humanity. And yet, only on this side
of the wall could these cries be heard.

I asked myself, ‘Why? What is the reason?’ The answer always was: there was no reason.

Even
in the West Bank, Palestinians struggle to move around. Checkpoints
arbitrarily turn people back or detain them for hours on end, despite
international law limiting detention without reason to 20 minutes.
People are beaten and humiliated at these checkpoints. These are not
defensive measures. They occur unprovoked and upon innocent bystanders.
With checkpoints and limited roads available to the Palestinians, a
60-mile trip from Hebron to Jenin can take six hours.

Foreign aid
workers are hardly welcome in the West Bank. The friends I had were
forced to lie under the pretenses of their stays in Israel or face being
turned away. Each time they leave, they fear they won’t be allowed back
in. Suspicion of going to the West Bank leads to detention in the
airport or on the border for hours, with the very possible result of
being turned away. I knew an American lawyer who was stopped at Ben
Gurion Airport. They demanded to look through her computer. Knowing her
rights, she said no. They told her they would take her computer and send
it back to her. When it was sent back, there was a bullet hole through
it.

Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams—a human rights
organization with funding from the United Nations—have had their
credentials turned down at the border. Even when they get into the West
Bank, there are risks. They have been arrested by the IDF for simply
escorting Palestinian children to school to prevent violence from
settlers and soldiers alike.

I cannot count the amount of times I
witnessed and learned things in which I’d fall silent. I asked myself,
‘Why? What is the reason?’ The answer always was: there was no reason.
I’ve witnessed what the government and thus media declare to be security
measures. They’re not security measures. They're oppression.

The
prisoners Palestinians refer to as “the kidnapped” are those who are
under Israeli administrative detention. Administrative detention was a
law carried over and expanded from the times of the British Mandate. It
allows Israel to throw anyone in prison—in use, Palestinians—for up to
six months without charges or due process. They simply renew the
sentence every six months, making imprisonment indefinite. These cases
are nonviolent in nature and are largely used as a measure to suppress
political activism in the West Bank.

The first night I was in
Hebron, I met a man who was in administrative detention for five years.
He was silenced after being politically active on his college campus
against the occupation. There were others I had met who had been
imprisoned under similar terms. None of them committed any wrongful
crimes.

I had tea in the home of another man who had been
imprisoned under administrative detention for four years. Hamas had been
helping to pay for his college tuition, so he was thrown in jail. What
people don’t realize about support for Hamas in the West Bank is that it
does not come out of a desire to kill all Jews. In times of relative
calm, most support actually comes from Hamas’s social welfare programs,
such as helping kids pay for school, running soup kitchens and
organizing community activities such as soccer leagues. This dynamic
changed as the war in Gaza began.